European Central Bank President Mario Draghi was paid 374,124 euros ($493,694) last year, more than twice Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke’s $199,700 salary.
The Frankfurt-based ECB published details of Draghi’s remuneration in its 2012 annual accounts Thursday. Draghi, who succeeded Jean-Claude Trichet in November 2011, helped to dispel fears that the euro could fail last year by pledging to buy government bonds if needed.
While his pay tops Bank of England Governor Mervyn King’s 305,368 pounds ($465,869), it will be dwarfed by King’s successor Mark Carney. Carney, who currently heads the Bank of Canada, will earn a basic salary of 480,000 pounds when he takes over from King in July. That’s more than three times Bernanke’s pay.
The ECB’s accounts also showed that two former Executive Board members, Lorenzo Bini Smaghi and Jose Manuel Gonzalez- Paramo, opted to forego their pensions in return for lump-sum payments totalling a combined 2.46 million euros when they departed.
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